Not the End of the World: Part 1
by Taigne
Summary: Trowa is having second thoughts about his relationship with Quatre, but can he actually end it? It would all be so much easier if he could just convince himself that he wasn't, perhaps, the 'bad guy' in all of this. Yaoi. Edited July '05. COMPLETE
1. Just Might Break

Disclaimer:Don't own them (and you might not want them back after what I do to them anyway)

Warnings: Trowa POV, angst, 4+3 (implied 4x3).

Setting: AU, set two years after the war of AC195, EW didn't happen.

Quoted lyrics from "London Rain" (Heather Nova)

**Just Might Break**

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be like this, I should..." you break off with a sigh and something within me constricts and stabs at my patience. It takes all my strength and self-control not to give in to temptation and snap at you.

Instead I flinch away, move to sit in the slightly worn chair in the corner of my bedroom. You curl up, folded in on yourself on my bed, hurt written on your features now, along with self-pity. I really can't stand it when you get like this. It's as if I can't tell you anything that's wrong with us or you'll get down and you'll mope and I'll be back to square one, having to remind you to do everything or you'll never get anything done. Then you'll sit there and angst about how terrible things are for you and how you never do anything right! You're impossible, I can't stand it, but I can't work out what to do. And it hurts because you never used to be like this, you always seemed so in control, earnest and willing. No, nearly always. Perhaps I just didn't know you well enough. Perhaps it was all an act on both our parts.

I have to admit to myself this mistake, on my part also. I should have left you months ago, before this got too far. Now I've given you a deadline, hoping to soften the blow. I shouldn't have even given that much, should have gone through with my first attempt to end this unhappy union. If only I could have been stronger. But you looked at me so lost with those pleading desperate eyes. How can your eyes still look like a child's despite all that you've been through, all the good and the bad that you've done?

Your shirt is beginning to show a damp mark. And I sit still as you cry and I feel ashamed. What could I do? I've always attempted to please people I've cared for, they've been few and far between I know. I can't stand to hurt them. That's why I stay away from as many as possible, to avoid having to be kind and considerate and help all the time. I listen to people's problems, I'm diplomatic, and I tell people what they want to hear. I know I've brought this on myself in that way.

I could have, should have stood firm, instead I gave in, crumbled under that childlike plea for help, for love. And it's all so tiring, all this human interaction. It wears me out more than piloting Heavyarms, more than spying, more than being alone. But I can't be alone either. I've been there, I've wallowed painfully, horribly in my loneliness and I promised myself when I found you, Quatre, never again. I'm not anti-social, does that surprise you to hear. No, I'm not like Heero; he actually doesn't like most people's companionship. I'm just asocial, because I need to please, because I'm so scared of hurting people or upsetting them. Simply to be around others for too long wears me out, makes me tired, brings out a side of me that I don't like too much but is definitely there.

Duo would probably call it my "bitchy side", and I do have one, I admit it. I'm not a nameless mystery and I do have emotions. I just feel uncomfortable showing them, because that makes people like you, and need you and want you to be with them constantly and it all gets too much and strangles me. Breathe. Watching you now I feel suffocated simply by being in the same room, we're still fighting even without words. You trying so hard not to cry, me doing all I can to hold myself back from comforting you and giving in all over again.

You see, it's reached the point now that I can't go on like this. It's too much pressure and it's too much hard work. It took me a long time to find 'me' again after I'd tried to dispose of feelings and emotions for so long. It got me through the war, but it ate me alive. And now Quatre, though I love you dearly, I can't keep giving myself to you, don't you understand? I can't do everything for you and be there twenty-four seven because it's getting hard to find me under everything spinning round my head that I should remind you to do! Something has to give, and I'm selfish enough that it is going to be you.

But I don't tell you my problems, do I, because that might make you dislike me, or get angry and hurt and I'd feel like the scum of the Colonies. So I just say "it's alright" and "we can try, of course", just like last time. I disgust myself on occasion. So I sit here, with my knees drawn up to my chin and my head resting on them, eyes not quite shut looking everywhere else but at you. And then there are tears and they are mine. That's another reason I can't stand this me. I never used to cry, never used to be so weak-willed and fragile. Another reason to hate me, I'm as screwed up as you are. If I could just get through one round of tremulous confrontation without weeping, this would be so much simpler. But I might still love you, Quatre, so much it hurts, and you're so clueless it hurts, and so I cry. And try to think of other things to stop the tears.

"Trowa?" You've stopped your sulking, or brooding or whatever you want to call it, and you've turned, half uncurled, to face me. Finally you've noticed something about me, something other than yourself! Bitch-mode on. Just push me a little further; sometimes I swear the only way I'll ever get out of this is to get pissed off at you, so just keep on pushing, my dear Quatre.

"Trowa, look at me." It's a demand, an order, and you might have actually done it this time. God, how I hate it when you take that superior tone, like I was your employee or slave. That's why I won't take a job working for you...but it never lasts long enough, the anger, and it's never hate at you. Maybe it's at the fact that I like being told what to do, so I hate myself, just a little more. Truth be told, I hate only what you do, not you, because I know if you knew how much it affected me, you'd stop. Or try at least; you're not very good at restraining yourself when you want something, are you.

No, I won't go there, I'm dealing with you now, not how you were, or how you've been before. But they're too similar sometimes. Still, my potential surge of vitriol and rebellion has passed and I mumble a 'doesn't matter'. You look for a moment like you'll come over here, take my chin to make me look at you, and I hate that too! Then you stop, halfway to standing, on your knees at the edge of the bed, the tangle of blue and white sheets around you feet. Instead you hang your head, and I want to wring your neck, but you don't mean to incense me, and I'm being unreasonable now. In this mood, in this situation, in this room where we replay such torrid, tear-filled scenes every few weeks, I loose focus at times. I'd never loose control, I've sworn that to myself, but my sense of proportion and rationality fly so far away. I close my eyes now to push it down, to regain my balance as my mind whirls.

The line of an old song drifts through my scattered thoughts.

_When somebody needs you, well, there's no drug like that._

Maybe whoever wrote that really believed it. I can't, or if I do, then it's the kind of drug that will make you feel wonderful, high and invincible, only to demand more of your mind and body than you have to give. Ultimately it will leave you bruised and tattered and spent on the floor. That's how you leave me Quatre, and even as tonight I tried to confess this to you, you go and demand more, turn this into something about you.

But you love me, you don't have to tell me so many times, I know anyway. You're transparent in that way, I know your lies, I know you. I know your love, and it feels so good, and how can I be so dense as to want to let go of that?

But I love you, and you're not intentionally selfish, no more that I am; yet you seem so oblivious. For one so empathetic, I don't understand how you can be so blind, my love?

But I hate me. Perhaps you don't see it as clearly as you use to, now I've found some peace and I don't take it out on me any more. Do I take it out on you now? I'm sorry, if I do. But I doubt you even notice any more.

That's why I backed out three months ago when I told you I thought we should end things. You looked so lost, confused and unseeing as you begged me to at least try. And you promised things would be different now that you knew that I had problems with how we were together. How could you not have known? I was shocked into acquiescing. But here we are tonight, repeating the same scene, you with your same lines, you same hopes, as if nothing I've done or said in the interim has made one blind bit of difference! I can't keep doing this, love. 'Love', it seems so flimsy and uncertain an endearment just now. This love, if it still warrants such address, is not the kind of passion or hunger that I felt last year, even six months ago. It has faded and been chipped away at by you and me both and I wish dearly that I knew what will happen in a month or even a week.

Everything is so fragile right now, including me. Help me with this, love, I can't be strong forever. I need you to take some of the slack, to shoulder some of the burden.

Or I might just break.


	2. Ask yourself the Question

Disclaimer: see first chapter.

Warnings: Trowa POV, angst, language, run-onsentences, 4+3, (implied 4x3)

Notes: those aren't spelling mistakes (I hope!) I'm English!

**Ask yourself the Question**

Wufei, I felt I understood, in his reasoning, in his manner at least. And we became friends; towards the end of the war, Peacemillion was when it began I suppose. It grew from camaraderie, after the war ended, into a more solid, mutual acceptance and respect that went beyond the acknowledgement of our skill in piloting or our bravery in battle. I still remember telling him that I had feelings for Quatre, and I was more than a little nervous for fear of his reaction. Though my trepidation proved unfounded, I was more afraid than I've been of many things. I have few friends and those I care to keep, I value above any other tangible possession and hold in reverence.

The one thing I can easily draw to mind that I have been more afraid of, is Quatre's reaction to our separation. I feared his opinion of me after that approaching, inevitable climax. I suppose initially that I feared he would hate me, or I would hurt him, but now my anxieties tend towards how it may hurt me. This convoluted and oppressive affair has made me realise how much I care about me, if it has achieved nothing else. It will accomplish nothing beneficial, of that I have no doubt. Or rather I had no doubt. Now I'm not so sure. I saw Wufei yesterday, and he gave me a new perspective on things, one I didn't realise I hadn't taken into account until it was presented to me in that direct, unapologetic way of his. Something about him I admire, and am so very thankful for, is that fact that I know he shows me the real him, the whole time.

Wufei is as he appears. Don't get me wrong, he has many layers and facets, he is an amazing mind and warrior. But he is true to himself in that, even when he is lost; and he has been lost, frighteningly so on occasion, he will not hide behind pretence. He is someone I can feel truly comfortable with because, with him as himself, I can be myself, also. I think that Wufei is perhaps the only person who knows the real me. Not even Quatre knows me. Oh, he's seen brief flashes, but I'm never as open nor as free with him as I can be in front of Wufei. Is that wrong? I'm beginning to think it is very much so. Chang has no expectations of me, demands no niceties of expression or tiptoeing around subjects. With Quatre, though I've come close at times (and when I have been truly happy I have shown a glimpse of naked expression), I still cannot tell him my most inner thoughts, my true emotions and opinions. And this is but one part of the fog that has consumed our relationship and has assured that we will not last without change. Of course, as Wufei made me see yesterday, maybe that's not such a problem.

That morning I sat in my apartment and, as is more and more frequently the case, I mulled over the events of the night before. Quatre had come over, and had his usual cheerful mask on while we had dinner and watched a strange movie about basketball team. More my thing than his, something his sister had recommended I think, though I have no idea which sister. Then he led me to my room, and we held each other, and he ran his fingers through my hair. I love that sensation, it's so soothing, on the edge of tickling, but not unpleasantly so. I felt a little guilty of taking too much pleasure in such things, being someone who doesn't really want this relationship anymore.

We had agreed, after I had almost left him, three months ago, that we would continue our relationship, but that we would hold back on the physical side until I was more comfortable again. Not that I felt I would get "more comfortable". It was idiotic and not what I wanted. Of course I liked the physical stuff, Quatre is good, very good at all that. I've spent a lot of time in my bedroom alone since then. The frustration didn't help, but what else could I do, the feeling guilty was really not a turn-on, being together physically was such a paradox of emotions. And at first he tried, and I could forgive occasional slips of his hand to my crotch as he was getting used to this new restraint I had imposed. But he's still "getting used to it" now, and the excuse is wearing thin. So when he did it last night, rather than forgive him, I move his hand away and relaxed my embrace of his waist, letting him know my displeasure without open, verbal chastisement.

But whether this would help in the end or just make things worse, I couldn't tell. I had to check myself to not yell and break up with him there and then, a sudden surge of anger went through me so strongly. My frostiness from there on in got to him, he can read that, even though I've been told that me displeased doesn't look much different from me sad, or me normally, or me bored. So he's not heartless or insensitive, most of the time. I should probably make it clear that he can be a wonderfully caring and attentive person. I wouldn't put myself through this for some one I didn't consider important and special to me, that's what makes it all the worse when he's so blind, hopeless and generally irritating!

Which made it the third time this week that I'd thought of ending things once and for all. The entire situation was progressing nowhere fast, which leads me back to my discussion with Wufei. We sat in my living room, as we generally do, bedrooms like mine are not for friends, they are for me to prove that the floor is much more functional a storage area than a closet. There, I can bask in the luxury of having more than a tiny compartment in my mecha in which to store my possessions. And it seemed less teenaged to sit and talk in the living room. Taking a sip of his lemon green tea, having heard all my own musings and self-directed questions on the subject, Wufei had one of his own to ask me.

"Are you really that weak, Barton?" Wufei's tone held a scornful edge and put me on the defensive. The phrasing harked back to ours days as soldiers, but I knew this was only used to make his point that bit more obvious.

"I don't know, maybe I am, maybe I don't want to hurt him, and maybe I don't want to have him hate me. I couldn't stand that, Wufei." I felt my chest tighten as I tried to get my head around everything. But my fear of loosing Quatre completely clouded my thoughts as usual, and I couldn't find a logical, detached perspective. So Wufei provided one for me.

"You cannot be a selfless creature, Barton, you are all too human for that." I glared at him, but he knew my heart wasn't in it. He continued. "I imagine that you have not considered the possibility that it may make you happier to break up with him. You've been moping and depressed for months. Yes, you will hurt him. He almost certainly does love you. But he will get over it, and hopefully get over himself while he's at it!" He sounded exasperated and I wondered if Quatre had talked to him too. I felt guilty all of a sudden for putting him in the middle, he didn't need to listen to my problems.

Wufei knows me too well.

"I have been talking to Duo, who has been on the receiving end of Quatre's thoughts on the current situation. If you won't talk to me Barton, I will drag it out of you or I will tell Quatre exactly how you feel, as you should have a long time ago!" He was annoyed at me for that mistake, my backing down, I knew. But we were dealing with the repercussions now, there was no point in wishing I'd been more firm in my initial attempt to break up with Quatre. It seemed so pathetic when I put it like that, but this was my first serious relationship. I was so scared of hurting the both of us, and I desperately didn't want him to hate me. That may be what I fear the most. It was so much easier to be Nanashi, simply existing as no-one to anybody. That way they didn't hate me because I didn't matter enough to them. But to have mattered to someone enough that I could incite hatred... that was a frightening prospect.

But he irritated me so much sometimes, and was then so needy about it. Even when he realised he had pissed me off, he had to go and demand more of me; whining on about how terrible he was and how could I love him? So I had to tell him it was okay, when it wasn't, and I couldn't stand it! Which was why I was seeing Wufei, because not only would he talk to me, but also he wouldn't stay too long. I could have some time to myself. I was beginning to feel so claustrophobic around Quatre that his every little flaw was getting on my nerves. I ended up scrutinising his every movement for something that would irritate me and, nine times out of ten, I found it. I'd asked for privacy for the previous three days and each day he had invented some excuse to come around.

I got the impression he had sensed that things were not peachy and was going into clingy overdrive, trying to hold on as the whole thing capsized. When you start describing your relationship as a boat, things are getting weird to say the least. As a result, I was getting more and more tense, needing my own space.

Some times, every once in a while, I really need a day where I can get up late and not have to deal with anyone else until I go to bed again. So I had arranged for Wufei to come over, the two of them weren't close enough for Quatre to have asked to come round too. Half a day for me. Then I had explained that, the next day, I needed to get things sorted out in my spare room, in case I needed the space for guests in the upcoming holidays. A white lie, I didn't actually intend to do it, the room could wait while I took some time for me. But with the choice of that or 'you're bugging the hell out of me, eff off!', my conscience, which repeatedly prevented me from saying anything negative to anyone's face, chose the former. Yes, I really am that weak, Wufei, and you know it.

I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at Wufei and try to explain things without seeming petty and sad. The fact that my brain firmly believes me to be both really doesn't help. I guess I have to laugh at myself here, or I may cry.

"I want to break up with Quatre. I think I have to, really. I can't stand... so much about him at the moment! But I want to still be friends."

"Which is why you've failed utterly to make a move." Add insult to my injury Wufei, you're not pulling any punches here are you? Yes I've 'failed'. But in my sugar coated version of events, I've just not got round to it yet. Suck it up Barton, you're being so 'lame', as Duo would put it. I run a hand through my hair as it falls into my eyes.

"Maybe I should talk to Duo. Quat keeps complaining that I'm not being open with him, but half the time I'm sure he's saying one thing and thinking another!"

"Possibly," Wufei concedes. He puts his teacup down on my end table and looks contemplative. "Although he maybe not be being honest with himself either. He's still convinced that you two can 'fix things'. Yet, I don't see that happening, from what you've said."

"It won't." I tell him, it's the most assertive thing I've said yet, and I mean it completely. So I kick myself again for the fact that I've never managed to say this, the one thing that I'm sure of, to Quatre. I've told Wufei on several occasions. He reads my thoughts again.

"He has a right to know, even if it hurts him. Are you waiting for him to do it? For him to fall out of love with you, or just to fall out with you altogether? You'll be a long time waiting, Trowa." I shivered at his words. He called me Trowa on purpose. He looked at me in that way that tells you he is right and there's nothing you can do about it. So much for being 'the enigma', Wufei can read me like a book. And so I guess I should answer him straight, because he's past bull-shitting round the bush now. Damn.

"I'll tell him, I'll try."

"Two very different things, Barton." Don't I know it. But it's all I can promise for now. Give me my alone day to build up the courage. I really will try, can't blame me if the prospect of Quatre hating me scares me more than 50 space Leos bent on my destruction!

"Well, " Wufei realises that it's the best I can do. "I have to be going now anyway. I have an appointment to keep."

It was only after he left that I pinpointed the trouble with that last sentence. He didn't tell me where or with whom. And Wufei is not deliberately mysterious on a whim. That implies Preventer mission. I long for a moment for the thrill of such a challenge, before I get back to my own little upcoming tête-à-tête with my boyfriend. That sounds so strange even now, and I haven't broken up with him yet. But I stopped thinking of him as my 'boyfriend' a long time ago. Before I even brought all this up with him, I had wanted his friendship, more than the demanding pressure we call our relationship. Is that selfish? Should I be grateful for what he has given me, and admit that it is over? I know that Wufei is right, that I'll feel better for it, if only because I'll no longer be on-call to him whenever he needs me. I'll no longer be pushed to my social limits at every slight problem of his. But what if he doesn't like me? 'What if?'. It comes back to that every time. I suppose I need to just find out.


	3. Silent Running

See previous chapters for warnings and disclaimer.

**Silent Running**

Somehow, things don't ever seem to go the way I plan them. Or rather, I'm so slow in the execution of said plan that it unfolds on its own and I can't direct it as I wanted. As I wished I had. And yet...maybe it's not so bad as it turns out.

Did I get up the guts to 'do the right thing'?

No. Quatre broke up with me. Are you amused? I sure as hell was not. The reason being, he did it because I wanted to. And yet at the crunch he couldn't bare it. He made up some crap about how he'd seen this coming and how it would be better for us both if we broke up, as I was restless and going to college soon, and he wanted time for the company and for himself. Why is that such crap? Because he was lying through his teeth. He knew full well that I was finally going to do the deed and so he scrambled for control of the situation. I rarely get angry. I did that day.

He'd called me, refused to tell me what he wanted, just that he had to see me to 'talk'. Some things are better said in person. Some things are better said when they need to be, before the person on the receiving end snaps and wishes they'd never met you. I was emotional, the pouring rain outside so apt and knowing. He was going to come over to my apartment, (I had no say in this) which was a mess because I was supposed to be alone that day and there he was invading again and I wasn't letting him in to spoil it. So I threw on a small jacket entirely inappropriate for the weather and stormed out to meet him halfway.

At some point my hot tears of frustration mingled with the rain, I hate that oppressive feeling when people get too much and I can't do anything about it. The urge to leave, to run, to hit the open road and be alone was so strong. But I had people who cared about me now. Not all of them crowded me like Quatre, but unlike before the war, I couldn't just forget them. I couldn't let them all worry about me. Not having learned what it is like to worry over someone myself.

Now I'm being the whiny clingy one. You're justified entirely in that opinion. I agree, I never claimed to be perfect, I wish that people would notice my flaws better than they do sometimes, because I really want them to know the real me. Of course, not telling them, being withdrawn, as I admit I am, probably doesn't help my desire become flesh. It's strange; there are brief moments of transition, when I have been outside of myself, not paying attention. Then I suddenly realise and watch myself say things and do things which are so not me, before becoming seated and careful again. Then I get a glimpse of what people must think of me, must see as 'me'. It's a frightening thought, because I am truly vain about such things, and I virtually never satisfied with the 'me' I see. I'd say I were a product of my upbringing, there was little done to bolster a child's self esteem by the mercs I travelled with.

But I don't really think that's true.

People can become too much for me at times, but I consider motivations and opinions constantly. And I don't think a single one of my friends, admittedly they are few and close to me and so perhaps not entirely representative, but not one of them likes himself. Not easily, not all the time. Especially when they really look. And some things make me really look.

On another subject entirely, and I won't apologise for the fact that my mind wanders, (flitting is a perfect word to describe thoughts don't you think) who said anything was forever? I think I first really thought about that as I stormed out into the pelting rain. My first relationship and I'm already grasping for that elusive eternity? How naïve. Whiny, clingy, naïve, yes I'm flawed, perhaps too much, I know that some would cast me out, turn me away for my faults. And that's what makes me so scared to loose him. What if no one else will have me? That really does frighten me, the prospect of being all alone forever. And yet at the same time, the revelation that it doesn't have to be that way, that he doesn't have to be the only one, will give me the strength to get through this. I hope so. I truly hope so.

But back to the story, yes I meant to tell one, not to ramble. It's always the quiet ones. Ask me to string a conversation together and I stumble over words and repeat myself, but when I write it all seems a lot clearer. A lot more poetic, I guess I have some poet in me. I wish I could find a way to let it out a bit more often. Anyway, I marched over in the rain to his apartment, resisting the desire to divert to the train station and 'get the hell outta dodge', and luckily I had stopped crying by the time I met him.

I won't go into the graphic details, yes I cried, and so did he, a more unusual occurrence than you might think. In the end my answers were reduced to curt snaps that would have fitted Heero or Wufei better than myself, but I was too involved in the moment to notice. It's only when I look back at it now that I realise things like that. And then I begin to wonder who the 'real me' is. But lets not go there, metaphysical is too much for me right now. I'm in one of those stomach uneasy, emotions colliding, 'not really wanting to think because it's all quite sad really when you put it like that' moods. Do you understand a word I'm saying? Probably not...I don't really mind, you're not me, and I don't understand me sometimes, so why bother to worry? About you I mean.

So I refused to be his personal counsellor anymore! I told him to go see someone who had the time and energy to help him. I have my own issues, but I deal better than he does, I guess. It seems harsh perhaps, yes he needs help, I know that! But I also know that I'm not the one who can give it to him. I've been trying for nearly two years, since I first got him to open up, and it hasn't done any good. I told you I was selfish, and I don't hate myself for that.

I am just as deserving of my own choices and as in need of happiness as the next ex-gundam pilot. I know that's not a good example, but it's true. And I intend to be happy. I've been depressed, I won't lie to myself, even if I'm secretive when it comes to letting others know of my true feelings. I don't deserve to be depressed and I won't wallow in it anymore. That's the only advice I could give him. I realise it's probably equivalent to an infrequent jay smoker suggesting to a heroine addict how they should quit, but that's the problem.

I don't know any other way to help. And that's what I've tried to tell him. Well, I only told him after I was polite about things for a while after it happened and tried to be there for him 'as a friend'. Bad idea, it doesn't work. Being friends. I wish I could just sever the ties completely, it might benefit both of us in the end, but our mutual friends make that difficult. Not by trying to interfere, but the mere fact that we don't want to make them choose between us. The problem is, with the exception of Duo, who has the patience of a saint, hell (he waited long enough for Wufei to wake up and smell the love thing), Quatre has alienated pretty much everyone. With his...'whininess' for want of a better word. They just don't want to hear it any more. They'd choose me, if forced, no delusion of importance on my part, just fact. It's a shame he barely knows any of his sisters. Those he sees more than once a year are more like friends and acquaintances than family. He won't, can't speak to them about us. I'm so lucky to have Catherine, I didn't realise for too long.

So am I the bad guy here, leaving him alone, and in need, when I know he hasn't got much else to hang on to? I don't want to say yes. I don't want there to be a 'bad guy'. I just want everyone, including myself, to realise that there are not rights or wrongs, just reactions that everyone has to other people. Even though we don't always, or even usually, understand them. No one does the right thing all the time. No one always has a solution. Sometimes there's no way to fix things. I tell myself sometimes, that I never really loved him. But I think I truly did. And I truly think that you can fall out of love. At least I hope so, otherwise I lied to him all those times, even after it took me so long to tell him, to say that pathetic and amazing 'I love you too'. Of course it's a response, I'm not mute, but forward? Too cowardly to be the first to say it, I know this. But it is not a response I'd give lightly. I didn't to Quatre. I'll tell myself that, as often as I need to, before I believe it.

I'm so confused. I wish I was alone again sometimes, it was all so much easier. No it wasn't. I should deck myself for attempting to romanticise that time. Fortunately, when I realise I'm stewing in my own juices, as much as I hate to keeping bugging him, I know that Wufei will time for me if I need him. You know he's probably the most collected and at peace with himself, of us five I mean. Not a great achievement, but true all the same. All that ranting and self-doubt, he went through got his problems out in the open, at least he was honest to people about it. And he's better for it than those of us who've repressed; I have no doubt on that score.

So I am now making my way through life, in not the best way possible, but in a way that I find not too horrible. Until I get better at looking after myself, I think that's all I can ask for. I work out, go over my preparation work for university, make my meals for one and I don't feel sad about it most of the time. I spend time at the weekends with my friends and I do enjoy it. It probably sounds boring and mundane, but I've never done boring and mundane before. Even when we weren't fighting anymore, I still had Quatre and all the complication that goes with him to deal with. So this slow and steady pace of affairs holds a fragile appeal for me just now. Perhaps I'll get bored in time, but 'normality' isn't as easy as I'd expected, and a social life is a big thing for me. I'm starting my university course in a week. I find it a little hard to believe. So I have enough on my plate, motivating myself and convincing myself that I can do this 'living' thing, without the need for extra excitement right now.

Oh dear...I've just jinxed it, haven't I? Good thing that I don't believe in that sort of thing. And that's the doorbell going. I get up from the sofa and turn down the Berlin Philharmonic that has been making its way through several famous concertos unnoticed as I sat in thought. I enter the tiny hallway of my apartment to the now-muted strains of Debussy and suddenly I know that it's Duo at the door. An odd, heavy feeling settles on my chest and I don't want to know why. My hand hesitates over the handle but I know he's seen me, the light in my hall casts my silhouette through the frosted glass of the small panels in the white frame. And I open the door.

To be continued in 'Not the End of the World: Part 2'


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